00:00the new territory doesn't have to be a new genre it doesn't have to be a reinvention it can be
00:06an
00:06attitude you know and i think that's what made this record so exciting for us rock metal frog
00:12and everything in between welcome to this episode of talk and rock with meltdown don't forget to
00:19follow the audio only talk and rock podcast on all podcast platforms and now it's time for today's
00:24conversation here's meltdown hey mike good to see you again yeah good to see you brother how you
00:30doing i'm doing well dude here in detroit rock city you guys were here in the studio with me i
00:35think
00:35when you guys first came out and i was thinking about this before we started talking that i think
00:40the first time i saw you guys on stage was at the foo fighters show when dave brohl was in
00:45his was on
00:46his throne oh yeah yeah the kind of big throne with the lights and everything yeah yeah so that would
00:52have been yeah that's quite a while ago now yeah it was quite a while ago i saw you guys
00:55last time
00:56when you're here of course uh in detroit now you get the new record out dead company what does it
01:00feel
01:00like to uh release a record man it feels good this record you know we always had playing it live
01:08in
01:08mind the whole time so um yeah this i feel like this is the first record where we genuinely i'm
01:16working
01:17out how to play as much of it as possible you know just kind of yeah we're going to struggle
01:22to
01:22not play the whole thing to them so everything just feels exciting well i was going to say 32 minutes
01:27and 45 seconds of pure pedal to the metal i heard it described as uh relentless would you describe it
01:32like that i think so yeah i think um for the pace that it's at and the energy level like
01:40it doesn't
01:40really let off so i think 32 minutes is kind of after that it's not going to get any better
01:46yeah yeah right yeah no i i've been listening to record uh quite a bit uh you know of course
01:53it just
01:54came out last week but uh man it's it's kind of like it's almost it kind of a little bit
01:58of going
01:59back to the roots of royal blood yeah i think it's you know reminiscent of how we started probably
02:05because it's back to a sort of bare bones approach but i think i think if this record takes it
02:12to
02:12another level you know we're kind of there's songs on this album that we've never made before you know
02:17they it's all up to 11 on this one i was gonna say have you seen the new spinal tap
02:24i have seen the
02:26new one yeah and it's also incredible all right getting back to the record so we can talk about
02:32spinal tap the whole time so what about the song uh dead company that uh brought it to the top
02:36and
02:37and made you guys want to um you know name this record that as soon as we wrote dead company
02:42we knew
02:44that was the opener that was just clear as um and i think you know that song lyrically probably
02:52is a good um representation of the record um there's a real sense of like perseverance to it
02:58um the fact that we named the record that was a bit of a uh accident weirdly we we didn't
03:06have a
03:06name and mike lithgow who did the artwork for us he was just using that as a placeholder because we
03:12had we hadn't decided on a name for the record yet um he just had a couple of trap names
03:17so he was
03:17just using that while we were working out you know how many whiskers the tiger should have and uh
03:24and after a while we just i got so used to seeing that title with the with the double-headed
03:29tiger
03:30it was one of those uh things where we're like you know what we should roll with this is it
03:34looks so
03:34good and it sounds so good um it just looked kind of you know it looked tough yeah yeah i
03:40was going
03:41to ask you about that about the uh album artwork do you how much input do you guys have i
03:44mean you guys
03:45seem to be really hands-on so obviously you have to have something but do you do you kind of
03:49let the
03:49artist just kind of go do his thing yeah i mean i would say it's the most hands-off we
03:54are in terms
03:55of everything else with the creative process um we've always had this like six-eyed tiger image
04:02which we have snuck into a lot of our stuff and i think we want we knew we wanted to
04:07have a revamped
04:09thing with a tiger but we yeah it was nothing uh that's all we really knew you know and then
04:15the first thing that my lithgow sent us was that double-headed tiger thing we just like that just
04:20looks amazing we want it on t-shirts i want that on a on the backdrop and the kick drum
04:25it just looks
04:25so cool and uh i guess you know what you're looking for is an image that somehow can represent
04:31the music you've made and that seemed like to me that's that was the bullseye you know
04:37yeah you just talked about uh some new sounds and i i read about that as well uh where do
04:42these
04:43new sounds come from after you know all these records that you've put out so far i mean did
04:47did you stumble upon them or did you use different amps or i'm not a musician so explain it to
04:52me like
04:52i'm five okay well i mean you know that you can spend so much time experimenting with different
04:57amps and pedals and guitars and i've done that yeah for years and um i think for us you know
05:06when you we've made four albums and we're kind of going to the studio thinking what are we going to
05:13do that feels exciting to us and feels fresh to us and we didn't really have the answer to be
05:20honest
05:20with you but we've taken this break away from writing and i think what it did is it recharged our
05:26battery a bit and when we came into the studio we just had this real amped up energy and we
05:33started
05:33playing in this way that i i don't think we've ever played in before it was just so brutal and
05:40i feel like we'd taken our original sound but sort of found this new gear that we didn't know was
05:46there
05:47um and i think to us it felt like you know what like the the new territory doesn't have to
05:55be a new
05:55genre it doesn't have to be a reinvention um it can be an attitude you know and i think um
06:02that's what
06:03made this record so exciting for us we're playing fast for the first time ever which is kind of
06:09strange you know we're 10 years over 10 years into this and we just hadn't gone there yeah 13
06:15years to be exact when i was walking around in my uh my rock room at my house say when
06:19you guys
06:19came through you you signed up a picture of uh you know uh your first album cover and stuff and
06:24here we are 13 years in it's kind of it's kind of remarkable to uh to think about and you
06:30just
06:30mentioned something i talked about it as being relentless and you just mentioned the word brutal
06:34that's a pretty good way to describe some of this stuff as well yeah you know we write a lot
06:39of this
06:39record facing each other in the studio and just kind of trying to go head to head you know ben
06:46would
06:47play the most outrageous thing he could and then i would see if i could match that level of insanity
06:57yeah i never thought about that before you had just two of you so yeah you're looking at each
07:00other right and then you guys um you know you you you uh produce this record as well this ain't
07:04your
07:04first time but do you guys feel that you guys know yourself the best and that's why that maybe
07:09producing it on your own is something that you really enjoy yeah i mean i love every part of this
07:16process i love writing and recording something you know we've become more confident in as the years
07:22have got on and we just love nerding out i mean i was i was part of every step of
07:28the process you know
07:29i was um i was right there right up to mastering sat in the mastering suite i kind of i
07:36love to get
07:37obsessed and get involved and um yeah being in the studio is like become a real lovely you know
07:43a massive part of the process and uh yeah i just love it man yeah you guys are in sound
07:49studio right
07:50i mean that's the famous studio with that neve board correct we did most of our studio um and yeah
07:58which is essentially like the world's nicest bedroom recorded we have a recording day it's kind of in a
08:05sort of glorified shed at the end of someone else's garden but um yeah that's kind of where we did
08:11most
08:11of it i suppose the whole record we wanted it to have this real diy thing to it and uh
08:17yeah the
08:18best way to have a diy sound is to literally do it yourself yeah that's right i saw that uh
08:25you uh
08:25you took up running a few years back and uh that's something i've never wanted to do i like to
08:30ride my
08:31bicycle and do and play hockey and things like that but uh you're you're coming through here april 10th
08:35the royal oak music theater do you um you run after every show i try to run as much as
08:42i can yeah
08:43on the last tour i got into this real good routine where as soon as the show was done i
08:49would have
08:49like trainers and running stuff ready to go and i would kind of just run out the back door and
08:55go do
08:56you know 5 10k and uh yeah i really enjoy it there's something very like peaceful about it and it's
09:03a
09:03really good kind of warm down for after a show um yeah it's a good one man yeah i was
09:09going to say
09:10because you got to harness that energy you just come off the stage now you got to come down and
09:14you might as well go run exactly yeah yeah it works really well yeah now how much how much to
09:19this how
09:19much when you're writing the music and stuff are you listening in your earbuds when you're running to
09:24the songs and maybe kind of critiquing them or do you listen to something completely different or
09:29nothing at all i don't listen to any i've never listened to music ever i when i'm like when we
09:34were writing the record so much of the song you know the songs were kind of going around in my
09:39head
09:40and i said you know i guess writing is a lot of problem solving so i found that in the
09:46middle of a
09:47run suddenly i would realize what we had to do to a song to kind of problem solve and get
09:52to the
09:53yeah it's almost like you know building a puzzle so i find it really good for that um but i
09:58just
09:59never run with music i just think it's it's too overwhelming it's too much now how much of uh how
10:04much of that translates into your on stage performance now that you know you're in good
10:09shape you're running a lot of cardio and stuff like that it's got to it's got to transfer right
10:14i mean it makes it easier you know yeah i think i think touring in general is i think the
10:20more you
10:21treat it like a sport the better it is it's uh it's a crazy thing to put your mind and
10:27body through
10:28so i think um yeah being physically fit for me anyway just i i love it you know i love
10:36i love
10:36getting to the end of the set and feeling like i could do it again well i'll tell you what
10:41uh my
10:41time is running out here but uh we'll give a good plug for the record dead company uh april 10th
10:46at
10:46the royal oak music theater you can come here to detroit have some detroit style pizza get all full
10:51play the show then go run and experience that's it what a combo pizza show run it's good that's the
11:02right order as well there you go hey mike congratulations with the record we'll see you
11:08here in detroit uh next year have a great uh holiday season christmas and whatnot and uh thanks so much
11:13for the time thanks man take care bye check out talking rock with meltdown on all podcast platforms
11:19and wrif.com
11:22you
